


Severed Hope

by LaurenCrabtree



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Blindfolds, Brief suicidal thoughts, Chains, Collars, Darkfic, Destruction of Treasured Possessions, F/M, Hurt with no Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Irony, Kinga Is Not Nice, Mentions of Max, None of Those Three Things Actually Get Used, Other Unidentified Implements, threats of amputation, threats of eye trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 04:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15964958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurenCrabtree/pseuds/LaurenCrabtree
Summary: Jonah has one last bit of hope left: his ship is still intact. After he attempts to escape, Kinga destroys it—or rather, repurposes it.





	Severed Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo; Jonah x Kinga + Treasured Possession Destroyed. No one requested it, but this idea was speaking to me, so I wrote it.

The room was hot. No, not just hot, it was  _ boiling _ . Jonah could feel the humidity in the air and the sweat dripping from his forehead, and while he couldn’t see a thing, something told him that they were still inside.

 

“Are you ready to see where you are?” Kinga’s voice cut through the darkness, sharp and crisp.

 

“Yes. Show me.” Jonah felt no hesitancy at saying this; whatever she was going to put him through, he might as well get it over with.

 

“Very well.” Kinga carefully slipped the blindfold off of Jonah’s head, her fingers lightly running through his hair as she did so. Bright lights hit Jonah’s eyes and he squeezed them shut, recoiling at the sudden contrast to the prior darkness. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he was met with the very last thing he expected to see.

 

His ship was there, intact and looking as lovingly worn-in as ever. For a moment, his hopes shot to cloud nine.  _ Was she finally letting him go? _

 

Then he turned his head and saw the rest of the room. To one side was a pile of miscellaneous pieces of plastic, rubber, and other materials, and to the other was a network of pipes, runners, gates, vents, and other objects with a series of rectangular objects on a table at the far end and a conveyor belt at the nearer end. It was on this belt that Jonah’s ship rested. It took him a moment to put two and two together, but the he slowly realized that the objects in the pile were parts from his ship. The vehicle, as it turned out, was not completely intact after all, but merely a husk stripped of its interior workings. The strange machine to his left only served to further confirm what he suspected.  _ This was a metal-casting facility. _

 

“What do you think?” He winced at the sound of her voice as it mocked him. She knew perfectly well what he thought, and in retrospect, he should have seen this coming. Nevertheless, he was still inclined to resist, even as he felt the tears beginning to well up. 

 

“You‘re  _ sick,”  _ he choked out. It wasn’t much, but talking was all he could do unless he wanted to lose a limb.

 

“Yes, and you’re naïve,” Kinga retorted. “You should have learned the first time that you’re not going to get out of here. And now you’ve gone and dragged someone else into this, too… Shameful.” She pulled a small remote from her pocket and pressed a button on it; from an unseen location, Jonah could hear desperate, agonized screams and near-incoherent pleas for mercy. It took him a moment, but he soon realized whose screams they were.

 

“Max!”  _ What had she done to him?  _ Jonah hoped against hope that it wasn’t anything close to what he himself had been put through.

 

“Oh, don’t bother; he can’t hear you. Although he’ll certainly hear you later when I play it back for him.” 

 

Jonah felt a pang of fear.  _ She was recording this? _

 

“I’m not going to make you listen to it again, of course,” Kinga continued. “I think these,” she gestured towards the rectangular boxes at the far end of the machine, “will be enough of a reminder.”

 

“What… What are they?” Jonah asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

 

“All in good time, Jonah; just watch for now. And if you move an inch, I won’t just take a leg off; I’ll also take an eye.” She pressed another button on the remote and the machine rumbled to life. Jonah gulped as the ship slowly began to make its way down the conveyor belt and into the machine, unable to tear his eyes away as he got his final look at the thing that had taken him to so many wonderful places. For a moment, he considered jumping onto the belt himself, letting himself die once and for all with the only remaining tether to his former life, but he pushed the thought out of his mind. If he died, he would never escape, and if he never escaped, Kinga would never be caught, and the thought of her torturing anyone else in the way she did him was more than he could bear. For now, all he could do was watch as his ship disappeared into the machine once and for all.

 

“Do you want to know a secret?” Kinga whispered, her breath tickling Jonah’s ear. “You still have another way to escape. I’m not going to tell you what it is, though; that’s up to you. For now, though, let me show you what those are for.” She gestured toward the table with the metal boxes once more before guiding him towards it. He could feel the heat even more intensely with each step, and by now he was completely soaked with sweat as a result of both the temperature and the fear. When they finally got there, Jonah saw that the objects were not boxes after all, but molds, and the molten metal that was once his ship was just beginning to flow into them.

 

“I initially didn’t want to destroy your ship at all,” Kinga explained, her voice calm. “Wouldn’t want you to completely lose hope. But after your little escape attempt, I figured it was better to be safe than sorry, so I thought of a better use for it. Look.”

 

As more of the faintly glowing liquid flowed into the molds, Jonah could make out the shapes that it began to take. In one, there was a long bar of indeterminate purpose—would she hit him with it? Tie him to it? Use it as some kind of spreader bar? In another, there were numerous small ovals—chain links, no doubt. It was the third and final one, however, that Jonah was truly taken aback by. It consisted of two separate casts, each one an open semicircle with space for what looked like hinges on one side.  _ A metal collar.  _ As the molds filled, Jonah’s heart sank—what was once his only hope of escape was now becoming that which would hold him back.

 

“Oh, and one more thing, Jonah,” Kinga said, slipping a hand into her pocket once again and withdrawing the key to what had once been his ship. “I’m keeping this around. It’s going to lock that.” She glanced at the collar mold. Jonah let out a defeated sigh and let the tears continue to flow. The cruel irony was not lost on him.


End file.
